Teacher and rap artist Marquis Bryant is in hot water after posting a clip of his math class on TikTok and sharing with the world how his middle school students do not know how to identify shapes.
The 2:12 minute video posted on Feb. 13 shows Byrant, who goes by the rap moniker of QB the Don, attempting to teach a geometry lesson to his class.
The exercise in the class’ textbook on solving problems that involve cross-sections gives an example that says, “A truck needs a metal divider that separates the refrigerated part of the truck from the dry goods. What should the divider look like, and how many square feet will the metal divider be?”
He seems to have asked them to tell him a shape is made when you slice a rectangle in half. His goal is to teach them about area, based on a page in their textbook. No one in the class can answer.
“Nobody in this class has an understanding of shapes,” he asks before noting that at least five out of 33 of the students said that they did.
“We’re talking squares, rectangles, triangles. That’s all. That’s literally,” he paused in frustration before adding, “We haven’t even gotten to the next … Oh my God … we haven’t even got to the hard shapes yet.”
The teacher, who is filming himself, goes on to say to the class that he didn’t ask anyone to pull out a calculator or attempt to do anything that would seem to be hard for 13-year-olds. Still, he prodded, hoping to get an answer. The more he tried to engage, the more despondent the students seemed to appear, even as he reminded the students that he taught the same lesson a week ago.
The overwhelming majority of the comment section sympathized with the teacher, noting that students across disciplines are struggling to learn.
However, a few took objection to how the teacher was speaking to the students.
“This vibe is passive-aggressive. These babies didn’t fail… the teachers and systems before you failed them. At 13, they felt this,” one person said. When another person tried to take the blame off the teacher, the person added, “How is speaking down to then and posting it on social helping them ?”
Another person wrote in part on Instagram, “Imagine how his students feel looking at the comments under his posts calling them dumb. And how unprofessional is it to record yourself berating and shaming kids for being struggling learners.”
“He is exploiting the children’s learning difficulties for content and TikTok checks,” the person continued, adding, “He spends way too much time on TikTok when he should be teaching.”
Bryant considered the concerns of those who thought he was inappropriate with the class.
He posted another video that said that he wanted to assess some of the comments, look at some of the “constructive criticism,” and digest it for himself. He took a beat before responding because he didn’t want to seem “combative” as he received the “feedback.”
“You know, there’s always room for growth,” he said. “So, first things first, I want to go ahead and apologize … you can’t never tell somebody how you made them feel. … If my tone and how I was talking, made you feel a type of way, I do apologize for how I made you feel. That was never my intention. My intention was never to be condescending and rude. I literally don’t even hear it. I just be talking sometimes. I do apologize.”
He then added that he wanted to address why he makes the videos and posts them online. He wanted to show people in real time some of the issues he has on a “daily basis” in school, but fears that were lost because people were focused on his tone and demeanor.
Others on social media understood what he was attempting to do and said there was no need to apologize.
“I don’t think he needs to apologize!!! 7th grade and you don’t know what a Square, Rectangle, and Triangle is? But I bet you they know all of Sexy Red songs word for word!” one person said.
Others added that blame should also be shared with parents, saying that mothers and fathers are students’ first teachers.
